


Olympic Traditions

by bwblack



Series: The Mummy Fics [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Humor, M/M, Olympics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-28
Updated: 2012-07-28
Packaged: 2017-11-10 22:42:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/471512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bwblack/pseuds/bwblack
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mummy prepares her friends and family for the upcoming Olympic games.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Olympic Traditions

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Drabble Friday Drabble Day at [Sherlockmas](http://sherlockmas.livejournal.com/). It got a bit long.

Olympic Attendance:

From the desk of Victoria Holmes:

The first Olympics I ever attended were here in London in 1948. My father bought tickets to the opening ceremonies for my 10th birthday. The whole world gathered right at my feet. I felt like a queen. I never missed another Olympic opening ceremony. That was 64 years ago.

I will not live to see another London Games. I aim to enjoy as much of this one as possible. Therefore, I have procured tickets to every event. Clearly, I cannot attend them all. I wouldn't want to. If I wanted to watch men grope one another, I'd visit my sons and their partners without calling ahead, again.

We will all attend the opening ceremonies together. I understand Mycroft has an earlier engagement. The Queen will attend both. So shall you. There will be no discussion.

The ceremony has a rather late start. You will want to remain fresh. Participants from 59 nations participated in my first processional. It felt like days. This year's event has 209 participating countries, movie clips, song and dance numbers and other undoubtedly other absurd theatrics. As if man's achievements weren't enough to stand on their own. Honestly! This year won't feel like days, it will take days.

And after that? Two weeks of competition. Rest well.

 **Gregory:** We could go round and round about this. I could imply that you prefer weight lifting because the most complex technical terms you are capable of understand are snatch and jerk.

You could goad me into believing you approve of the All England Club forgoing the tradition of whites.

It is a terribly insulting precedent. As if non tennis fans can only understand for whom to root if they are draped in a flag! And if patriotic fashion statements are for the benefit of the athlete, then colours are performance enhancing substances and should be banned by the IOC.

I have, and you want, tickets to an absurd number of football matches. I will give them to you on two conditions. 1) You never again complain about penalty kicks. 2) You drive me to the events. The traffic will be ghastly for the whole event.

You have a siren. It is your biggest asset.

Olympic football tickets are mine.

I will call you when I am ready to be picked up.

 **Mycroft:** I'm sure you're aware that the 1948 games came to be known as The Austirity Games. Due to economic hardships still felt from the war, it was a low key event. However, it reminded the nation and the world, well the western world, that we could put our heads down and soldier on. It was a lovely two weeks. I will never forget it.

However, here we are again hosting the games during a time worldwide financial crisis. Might I suggest, as a student of history and quadrennial sport, that we avoid hosting the games in future? Or simply consider future successful bids as an early warning of potential market calamity?

Good.

Knowing that you believe spectator sports are best endured indoors, I have will see you during cycling in the velodrome. I considered the equestrian events, but I will not have you distracted by a certain foreign political candidate.

 **Sherlock** : We have been to many swimming events together. I have never understood your fascination with competition level swimming facilities. I mention facilities because I don't actually recall you ever actually watching a single event. Did you want to continue skulking about the venue, or shall we move on to a more stimulating sport?

I would personally pick fencing. You showed such promise at Eaton. I never understood why you quit. When you were five you never went out to play without a toy saber and beekeepers mask. I thought the sport was a most natural fit.

John: Gregory thought you might enjoy the sharp shooting events. I cannot imagine why. What fun is the hunt if it produces nothing to eat? I have never understood that. Maybe you can explain it to me. If you are up to that challenge, might I prevail upon you to do the same for archery?

At least badminton has a birdie.

Don't even bother with handball. Smacking balls about with ones hands should have become obsolete when man developed the racket.

 **Harriet** : As charmed as I'm sure we all were at Wimbledon, I am uninterested in hearing more of your speculation about which athletes would be the most "primal" in bed based on the volume and tone of their grunts.

A theory is just that until it is tested. Feel free to return to the subject when you have performed a series of tests with an adequate and diverse sampling of athletes.

64 years ago less than 10 percent of the athletes were women. This year every nation has brought at least one female competitor. No discipline is limited solely to men. I wonder what the statistics will be in 64 years.

Wouldn't it be lovely to live in a world without a need for such statistics? Well, no. What would Mycroft, do?

I assume I will see you for tennis? Shall we add female pugilism?

I do not know how I feel about equality necessitating women being allowed to punch one another in the name of sport, but there is only one way to find out. I welcome a most lively debate. If it is anything like our melee over the marginalization of women in television and film, we will be in the right place.

 **Martha** : While I appreciate that your husband would have killed _literally_ for tickets, you need not point that out at every event.

I am quite looking forward to being with another person who remembers the previous games. Do you think Finnish gymnasts are as beautiful now as they were when we were girls? Pity, age. The competitors then were something to aspire to, now they are children. I still have desires, however, finding somebody who inspires them involves searching about in the stands for brief glimpses of Bjorn Borg.

Do not forget your binoculars!

Whatever else you are interested in seeing, we can't miss the men's 400 metre. Between your hip and my knees, and after all the requisite stair climbing, I rather suspect we will need to be reminded of what can be achieved with artificial parts.

Now, everybody rest well. Mrs. Hudson and I have between two and four decades on the lot of you. It would be terribly humiliating and something I would never forget, if you failed to keep up.

Yours,  
  
Victoria Holmes


End file.
